[sf-lug] Please post URLs of big files, not the files themselves (was: mail not going thru?)

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Bobbie Sellers (bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com):

>     Here are the headers.  Thanks for the hint about what information you
> needed to try to resolve the problem.

Yr. welcome, Bobbie.  Let's go hunting in the logfiles.

> >From: Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com>
> >Subject: SF-LUG for Sunday June 2, 2019
> >To: SF-LUG <sf-lug at linuxmafia.com>
> >Message-ID: <a0c9c4fb-c2af-3468-1de2-dd3a123895b0 at dslextreme.com>
> >Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2019 11:12:16 -0700


Mail was received from your address during that time period would be
noted somewhere in file /var/log/exim4/mainlog.  Inbound mail is shown
with '<=' in the log entry, so:


linuxmafia:/var/log/exim4# grep bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com mainlog | grep "<="
2019-06-03 11:13:44 1hXrSL-0006Gg-Rl <= bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com H=smtp754.redcondor.net [208.80.206.54] P=esmtp S=197256 id=a0c9c4fb-c2af-3468-1de2-dd3a123895b0 at dslextreme.com
2019-06-03 12:13:36 1hXsOc-0007Bu-0J <= bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com H=smtp754.redcondor.net [208.80.206.54] P=esmtp S=2979 id=964552fd-dd0c-93a6-2578-2b56e12d339b at dslextreme.com
2019-06-03 13:14:40 1hXtLm-00084J-Rt <= bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com H=smtp754.redcondor.net [208.80.206.54] P=esmtp S=7012 id=2d25fc71-36f9-9df7-0a14-a983b1bc2c09 at dslextreme.com
linuxmafia:/var/log/exim4#

The first hit is a probable match.  Let's look at the surrounding
context inside mainlog (thus finding three lines of context):

2019-06-03 11:13:44 1hXrSL-0006Gg-Rl SA: Action: scanned but message isn't spam: score=-3.3 required=4.0 (scanned in 8/8 secs | Message-Id: a0c9c4fb-c2af-3468-1de2-dd3a123895b0 at dslextreme.com). From <bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com> (host=smtp754.redcondor.net [208.80.206.54]) for sf-lug at linuxmafia.com
2019-06-03 11:13:44 1hXrSL-0006Gg-Rl <= bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com H=smtp754.redcondor.net [208.80.206.54] P=esmtp S=197256 id=a0c9c4fb-c2af-3468-1de2-dd3a123895b0 at dslextreme.com
2019-06-03 11:13:45 1hXrSL-0006Gg-Rl => sf-lug <sf-lug at linuxmafia.com> R=mailman_router T=mailman_transport

So, it was a message addressed to sf-lug at linuxmafia.com, and was handed 
off to GNU Mailman (as per T=mailman_transport on the third line).
And so we go off to Mailman's logs, and hunt there.

I'll skip some poking around I did to re-familiarise myself with Mailman's 
log structure, and go straight to the chase, where I found exactly 
your problem, where your attempted posting was intercepted and held
for listadmin scrutiny because of a problem with the content.  This 
was shown in /var/lib/mailman/logs/vette, which says:

vette:Jun 02 19:55:19 2019 (12585) sf-lug post from bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com
 held, message-id=<be804002-4060-b4ad-9a7f-f5cf623d2259 at dslextreme.com>: Message
 body is too big: 194739 bytes with a limit of [RM: redacted]
vette:Jun 03 11:13:46 2019 (12585) sf-lug post from bliss-sf4ever at dslextreme.com held, message-id=<a0c9c4fb-c2af-3468-1de2-dd3a123895b0 at dslextreme.com>: Message body is too big: 194796 bytes with a limit of [RM: redacted]


Every mailing list in the world has a maximum permitted posting size,
and sf-lug at linuxmafia.com is no exception.  I've redacted the exact
figure because publishing it gives people an incentive to nonetheless
send abusive content such as **ahem** photos, but slide barely under the
limit.  Suffice to say that the max size limit is generously high for
content appropriate to mailing lists.

In short:  It is inappropriate to try to send out binary attachments to
all subscribers of a mailing list.  No offence if you forget and try;
your post will just be held for approval and politely rejected by the
listadmin manually.

And, hey, now that I see two oversized (200kB) attempted SF-LUG
postings from Bobbie Sellers in the listadmin queue, I'll send back
a polite non-acceptance notice.

Quoting the body of your attempted posting:

   I was a bit later than usual but by 10:45 I had set up
   pretty well as can be seen from the photo, thanks to
   John S.

I'm looking forward to seeing the photo, after you upload it to one of 
dozens of free photo-hosting sites, and post its _URL_ rather than 
attempting to force-send the photo to all 280 subscribers.

Personally, I rather like Shutterfly, https://www.shutterfly.com/ .


Just for context, any time you _do_ successfully use a mailing list to
send a 200kB photo to 280 mailing list recipients, that means my badly
overburdened home aDSL line that connects the Internet to my server has
to send 281 * 200kB = 56 megabytes of file transfers, just to broadcast
out a photo that, conservatively, maybe two subscribers will actually 
want, and should spend their _own_ bandwidth getting it.

And that is why you should send out URLs of such files to mailing list
subscribers, not force-send the files themselves to everyone.  With the
URLs, then the people who are interested in the file can fetch it at the
expense of their bandwidth rather than mine.

Try Shutterfly.  It's nice.  And please don't do that other thing on any
mailing list, not just mine, because that is _not_ nice.